So now I know no ones reading this site I’m going to write about whats been going on.

Over the next month I’m being assessed for Autism and ADHD.

I’ve known there was something going on for a long time. As a kid I remember wishing other people could see what it was like inside my head and could see through my eyes becasue it was clear they experienced something different to me. They could do things easily that I just had no clue about, like holding conversations and maintaining friendships. Everyone else just seemed to get it.

Years of anxiety and depression passed until in about 2008 something happened and I started to seriously look into whether I had an actual condition/label instead of being just broken. Back then, my limited understanding of ADHD and Autism lead me to dismiss them. I clearly didn’t fit into the sterotypes I recognised but there were aspects that made sense and felt familiar. They were also common in other conditions/personality types. ( I’ve since discovered its perfectly possible to have all the symptoms of ADHD or Autism without actually having/being them. Its also possible to have both, though they only accepted that in 2013 ).

Anyway I settled on assuming I was probably just an introvert. It helped me justify my odd personality and behaviour to people and made me feel less weird ( to understand why a label can feel beneficial, Google Autism zebra ). However those question about ADHD and Autism never went away. Introversion didn’t cover all the things I didn’t like about myself and I couldn’t deny they had many traits I recognised. But wouldn’t everyone?

Then I discovered ADD ( the hyperactivity is internalised ) and Aspergers ( the mildest form ( its so much more than that but .. )) and it made much more sense and felt like a possibility. Until I started properly reading into it and became overwhelmed by the complexity, nuance and overlap. I’m not a doctor and don’t understand to the level needed. So I left it.

In 2022 I burnt out.

I didn’t recognise it and tried to fight my way through, which only made it much worse, getting me so run down that infections eventually put me in hospital.

Still now, over 2.5 years later I’m still deep in it. I can function on the surface now but underneath I’m floundering.

For the first time ever I asked for help with what I thought was depression because I was unable to work and didn’t see a way forward. Therapy was a god send but didn’t work, at least not in the way expected.

The first 4 complimentary sessions were extended to 12, then 14, then abruptly cancelled. They felt there was not enough progress because there was a deeper issue/condition that had to be addressed first. I got passed to an Employment Councellor and several months later to a new Therapist. After only the first session the new Therapist asked if I’d consider an ASD assessment. Obviously this wasn’t a total surprise but she’d asked this after one session. On cancelling the Employment Councellor shortly after, I told her what the therapist had said and about my surprise to which she confessed she’d treating me as someone with ADHD since the first day, because to her it was obvious.

Since then I’ve watched hundreds more videos, podcasts, Tik toks etc.. from professionals and amateurs. Many times I’m left thinking ‘well, I don’t do that so I can’t be’ but then often in the same video something will make me go ‘oh my god thats me!’. Non of that means anything as its just anecdotal and my unprofessional interpretation. But after a while so many positives start to add up and whether I’m diagnosed or not, theres a lot of helpful information out there that really helps.

So now I’m answering hundreds of questions, filling in countless forms that make me wonder if they’re part of a test. How they expect me to concentrate long enough to fill them in is anyones guess but thats what I’m supposed to be doing now.

Instead, I’m writing this.